Recollections of a Literary Life, Or, Books, Places and People

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Harper & Brothers, Publishers, No. 82 Cliff Street, 1852 - 558 pages

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Page 548 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Page 318 - Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine! I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Page 317 - Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a highborn maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view!
Page 547 - STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one ; but the general counsels, and the plots, and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned.
Page 244 - ... Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine ; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine ; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.
Page 317 - What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Page 320 - I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild...
Page 140 - The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind : but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received ; or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Page 182 - I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; " Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ;
Page 432 - The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver ; But not the dark arch, Or the black flowing river ; Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be...

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